Practice Makes Permanent

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Yep, that's me when I was 10. I loved animals, handicrafts, and dreaming. Back then, I was the
belligerent queen of anti-math. I neglected, ignored, flunked, and downright hated math and
science all through grade school, middle school, and high school. It's strange to realize I'm now
a professor of Engineering. I enlisted in the army right out of high school to study language at
the Defense Language Institute. That's me at 18, looking very nervous and very focused while
throwing a hand grenade.

I only started to study math and science when I was 26 years old, after I got out of the military.
At first, it was really hard. There were all these quick thinkers in my classes who seemed to get
everything a lot easier and faster than me. Sometimes I'd take a break for a few months, I'd go
out and work as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers. That's me up in the Bering Sea. And I'd
come back to school and try and learn some more. As I gained technical know-how, new doors
started opening up for me. I ended up working as a radio operator at the South Pole Station in
Antarctica. That's where I met my husband. I always say I had to go the end of the Earth to
meet that man. Here he is, after only 10 minutes outside at minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit with
a 60-mile-an-hour wind. The wind chill takes it off the charts.

Now, I wasn't natural in math and science. Not at all. The way I succeeded was to gradually
begin to figure out some tricks. But let's back up a step. In the greater scheme of all the
different careers and disciplines that people can pursue, why are those involving math and
science, sometimes, a bit more challenging? We think it may be related, at least in part, to the
abstract nature of the ideas. I mean, let's take a cow for example, out standing in a field. If you
have the word cow, you can point right to a cow to learn what that word means. Even the
letters for the word cow, C-O-W, are roughly analogous to sounds that they stand for. But for
mathematical ideas, there's often no analogous thing that you can point to. There are no plus
signs standing out in a field. No multiplication, division, or other kinds of things that can
directly equate to mini mathematical or scientific terms. These terms are more abstract, in
other words. Well, you might say, yeah, but what about ones like love, zest, or hope? Those
are all abstract. Yes they are, but the thing is, these abstract terms are often related to our
emotions. We can feel our emotions, even if we can't see and point to concrete examples, like
we could with the cow. This means it's important to practice with ideas and concepts your
learning in math and science, just like anything else you’re learning to help enhance and
strengthen the neural connection you’re making during the learning process.

You can see on your left here the symbolic representation of a thought pattern. Neurons
become linked together through repeated use. The more abstract something is, the more
important it is to practice in order to bring those ideas into reality for you. Even if the ideas
you're dealing with are abstract, the neural thought patterns you are creating are real and
concrete. At least they are if you build and strengthen them through practice. Here's a way to
picture what's going on. When you first begin to understand something, for example, how to
solve a problem, the neural pattern from is there, but very weak. Kind of like the faint pattern
at the top of our paintball machine analogy here. When you solve the problem again fresh
from the start, without looking at the solution, you, you begin deepening that neuron pattern,
kind of like the darker pattern you see here in the middle. And when you have the problem
down cold, so you can go over each step completely and concisely in your mind without even
looking at the solution, and you've even had practice on related problems, why then, the
pattern is like this dark firm pattern you can see towards the bottom of the pinball frame.
Practice makes permanent.

When you're learning, what you want to do is study something. Study it hard by focusing
intently. Then take a break or at least change your focus to something different for a while.
During this time of seeming relaxation, your brain's diffuse mode has a chance to work away in
the background and help you out with your conceptual understanding. Your, your neural
mortar in some sense has a chance to dry. If you don't do this, if instead you learn by
cramming, your knowledge base will look more like this, all in a jumble with everything
confused, a poor foundation. If you have problems with procrastination, that's when you want
to use the Pomodoro, that brief timer. This helps you get going, using brief periods each day of
focused attention that will help you start building the neural patterns you need to be more
successful in learning more challenging materials. Next stop, we'll be talking about chunking,
the vital essence of how you grasp and master key ideas.

I'm Barbara Oakley. [BLANK_AUDIO]